"La Verrière seemed to me to be a space where light was enormously important – and constantly changing. It's also a space that stands apart from the world outside, a secret space amid the bustle of the city." Artist Monique Frydman has created a modular installation in the exhibition space at La Verrière – a repeated pattern of overlapping paper leaves, a gently rustling wall covering receptive to the tiniest brush of a body in space.
In the heart of Brussels, the installation uses subtle colour to create a diaphanous, evanescent world. Sheets of Japanese coloured paper are coated with successive white layers to achieve infinitely pale, mother-of-pearl hues. Far removed from the showy excesses of contemporary society – where, says Monique Frydman, painting has no place - the installation's discreet murmur, silent space and emotive pallor counter the sensory overload and meaningless chatter of modern life.
A renowned colourist, Monique Frydman is the author of an installation created in 2006 for the Musée Matisse in Matisse's home town of Cateau-Cambrésis, based on large multicoloured checkerboard muslin surfaces. In 2007, she created a monumental painted glass panel for the Toulouse metro, and a series of screen prints on altuglas at the city’s modern art museum, Les Abattoirs. Her mural at the Manufacture des Gobelins (Paris) recreates a 112-tone colour scale in raw skeins of wool and silk.
